


between you and what you love

by elegantidler



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: (Ed's working through Some Stuff), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Analysis, Character Study, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 12:59:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13834941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantidler/pseuds/elegantidler
Summary: then the voice in my head saidWHETHER YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVEOR LIVE IN DIVIDED CEASELESSREVOLT AGAINST ITWHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE





	between you and what you love

* * *

**Part I: divided ceaseless revolt**

* * *

 

The first time Ed realizes he is different he is 11 years old and his best friend Chris is telling him about the girl in their class he has a crush on and how he wants to ask her to be his girlfriend and to eat lunch with him.

Ed has never had a crush.

He considers this carefully.

The way Chris talks about her is the way that Ed thinks about Chris. But Ed doesn’t like-like Chris. They are best friends.

Boys like girls, and girls like boys and that’s the end of it.

(Five years later Chris is pushing Ed into a wall of lockers and calling him a freak as a crowd of students laugh. And a voice at the back of Ed’s brain will repeat their taunts back to him over and over.)

-

Freshman year of high school Ed is infatuated with a new boy in his class. He has incredible blue eyes and a sharp tongue and Ed can’t stop thinking about him.

He memorizes his schedule and tries to talk to him about anything he can.

He is polite at first, but like everyone else, he gets annoyed by Ed and stops being polite.

(The following year he will be one of the students laughing when Ed slams into the metal lockers so hard he tastes blood.)

-

He gets through the rest of high school just barely by being invisible. He tries to read his way through the poorly stocked library and fakes a crush on a pretty red-haired cheerleader to drown out the cruel voices around him and in his own head.

He gets out of his parents’ house and out of that town and goes to college where he takes too many classes and never goes home on weekends.

And still the voice whispers,

_You are not normal._

_No one will ever love you._

_You are a freak._

-

By the time he graduates he has a 4.0, has taken 8 more classes than more of his peers, can tell you the best method for taking a fingerprint from any surface, has made no friends, and has dated exactly zero people.

-

The officers at the GCPD, with all their masculinity and aggression, cut him off when he tries to talk. They whisper and make assumptions.

The records keeper smiles at him and he has been pretending for so long it’s almost natural at this point.

And the voice whispers,

_With her you can be normal._

_You have to make her yours._

_Be a real man._

-

And he pretends to be normal for a few short weeks before he is grasping at loose threads and everything is falling apart again.

And the voice laughs,

_You could never be normal._

_You will always be a freak._

-

And then there’s Oswald. Oswald, with his fiery brittle anger and his intense blue eyes. Oswald, who seems entirely unfazed by how close Ed sits to him, or by the way Ed laughs when he stabs Mr. Leonard.

And Ed desperately wants to make Oswald happy for a reason he can’t quite understand. The reason dances just out of reach, familiar and new at the same time and it tickles at Ed’s brain when he’s trying to sleep. 

And Oswald smiles at him, and sings while Ed plays piano.

(And the voice is quiet.)

-

When Oswald goes away he tries to embrace a darker version of himself and gets thrown in Arkham for it.

But Oswald sends him gifts and visits him when it’s allowed.

And Ed won’t admit it but those visits are all that is keeping him from losing himself to the endless grating noise and chaos of the Asylum.

He memorizes the colors of Oswald’s clothing, and the freckles across his face, and the way his eyes look when he smiles and plays those images over and over behind his eyelids when he is alone in his cell.

-

And then he is free and Oswald is there to catch him and he has never wanted to make anyone happier more than he wants to make Oswald happy right now.

Oswald is his best friend.

He would do anything for him and the words spill out like a confession and he wouldn’t take them back even if he could because Oswald is hugging him so gently and the fire is warm and the fabric of Oswald’s robe is the softest thing he has ever touched.

(And still the voice is quiet.)

-

Isabella is beautiful and familiar and safe.

And the voice speaks, hoarse from lack of use,

_Boys like girls, and that’s it._

_Don’t screw this up again._

_If you can’t manage to be normal now you’re never going to get another chance._

-

And he tries.

He tries so hard but the voice won’t stop, and it’s mimicking Kristen now and he feels the sand under the foundations of this normal life slipping away and he is desperately trying to keep it all from collapsing around him.

And the effort of trying to be normal is slowly tearing him apart.

-

And in the end, his efforts don’t matter.

While he was clinging to a collapsing dream, Oswald and his fiery brittle anger were destroying everything they touched and he loses Isabella anyway.

-

He is standing in the very center of a hurricane of emotions.

Anger, grief, fear, loneliness, (freedom,) despair, betrayal all swirling around him in rapid succession.

Oswald is trying to tell him that he did it for love.

And Ed is so angry he can’t breathe.

Oswald took away his last chance to be normal, to be happy.

(Oswald, who sent him a sweater when he was cold, who defended him against Butch’s insults, who looked at Ed like he was the only thing that mattered in the entire universe.)

And Ed doesn’t know what to feel and the voice is laughing cruelly in his ear, taunting him.

Forcing himself to not feel anything, he pulls the trigger and pushes Oswald off the pier.

And then he spirals into self-destruction.

(And weeks later when Oswald comes back he will try again and again and again to finish what he started and Oswald will win, and take everything from him, and then let him walk away defeated.

And the voice mocks his pathetic attempts to rebuild.)

 

* * *

   **Part II: thank you, terror!**

* * *

 

They strike an uneasy alliance out of necessity against Sofia.

It’s been months since the last time they saw each other but every nerve in Ed’s body still feels raw and exposed and every time he sees Oswald it feels like someone is scratching at burned skin.

There are rules and deals and Ed is sure Lee is getting tired of the two of them trading barbs while she is trying to strategize.

(And the voice that was whispering about Lee is quiet when he’s near Oswald.)

-

Several weeks later, in the middle of a shootout, Ed sees the gun pointed at Oswald’s back and reacts without thinking, running full speed through a hail of bullets exchanged between Lee and Sofia’s men and tackles Oswald to the ground behind a parked car.

His heart is in his throat, pounding with terror.

He wasn’t afraid of getting shot, he was afraid of Oswald dying.

Afraid of losing him.

And the voice is screaming at him.

And Ed finally understands.

Finally understands what he was doing with Isabella and Kristen and the cheerleader in high school.

Finally understands why Oswald makes the voice go quiet.

Finally understands what he couldn’t and wouldn’t admit to himself.

And he is kissing Oswald fiercely and desperately.

And after a moment of surprise Oswald is kissing him back.

And the voice is finally, _finally_ silent.  

 

* * *

**Part III: what you love is your fate**

* * *

 

A long time ago, so long ago it feels like several lifetimes, in his green loft, he had asked Oswald if he believed in fate.

Oswald hadn’t answered.

As they sit here on the couch, their sides pressed together, in front of the fire in the mansion that Oswald had reclaimed, Ed thinks about fate again and all the detours he has taken to finally get to this point. And how despite all that had happened, he and Oswald were here again, together, in front of the same fireplace that they had sat in front of so long ago when Ed’s words sounded like a confession and Oswald’s hug felt like a promise.

Ed understands so much more now.  

He had spent so much of his life running, running from bullies, running from himself, running away from things he wasn’t ready for.

But when he lays next to Oswald he can finally be _still._

He looks down at Oswald who has dozed off on his shoulder and wonders how this journey had been so much easier for Oswald. Oswald, who understood this love first, and hadn’t run for miles in the opposite direction. Oswald, who never denied how much he loved and cared for Ed, even as Ed put a bullet in him and tried again and again to make it stick.

Ed values his intelligence more than almost anything else, but there are somethings that Oswald just understands better.

To believe in fate seems overly sentimental and spiritual, but Ed can’t help it. He feels like the universe has shifted to make sure they wound up here, together.

He leans down and presses a soft kiss on Oswald’s dark hair and Oswald stirs and blinks blearily up at him, leaning up to press a kiss to Ed’s lips.

And the universe is finally at peace.  

**Author's Note:**

> Title and subtitles of parts 1 and 3 come from Frank Bidart's 'Guilty of Dust': https://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/guilty_of_dust_20102  
> Subtitle of part 2 comes from Bidart's 'Queer': https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/queer


End file.
